Relief to AP government, power employees withdraw strike call

VIJAYAWADA: Negotiations by energy minister Pedddireddi Ramachandra Reddy and education minister Botsa Satyanarayana with the leaders of electricity employees on Wednesday led to cancellation of the indefinite strike call in the state’s power sector from Thursday.

The government agreed to form a committee with the CMDs of discoms under the leadership of APGenco MD to correct the anomalies and fix new pay scales. Following this, the power employees JAC cancelled the strike plan. This came as a big relief to the YSRC government.

The two ministers and officials earlier brought the issues to the notice of the Chief Minister, who in turn responded positively, and the negotiations yielded fruitful results.

The ministers said the government's negotiations with the APSPEJAC have yielded results. “This is a pro-employee government and the Chief Minister has taken good decisions. The ministers said the management and the employees need to make a lot of sacrifices to save the electricity companies.

Officials of AP Transco, APGenco, APCPDCL, EPDCL, SPDCL and representatives of JAC signed agreement papers by approving the proposals of PRC.

APSPEJAC leader Chandrasekhar said they brought 12 issues to the notice of the government and got positive responses.

Ramachandra Reddy, Botsa Satyanarayana, chief secretary K.S. Jawahar Reddy, energy department SCS K. Vijayanand, finance SCS Shamsher Singh, APGenco managing director Chakradhar Babu, CPDCL CMD Janardhan Reddy, Transco JMD Malla Reddy, energy joint-secretary Kumar Reddy, JAC leaders Chandrasekhar, Pratap Reddy, Sai Krishna, Sesha Reddy, Srinivas and others participated in the meeting.